Man might pay a price for toilet rescue

NEW YORK — As if it were not punishment enough to have an arm caught in a train toilet during the evening rush and your name splashed all over the papers the next morning.

Now the unlucky fellow who tried to fetch his cell phone out of a toilet on a northbound Metro-North Railroad train on Wednesday may have to pay for his misadventure as well. Metro-North officials said Friday that they were considering whether to go after the commuter for the thousands of dollars the railroad expects to spend on overtime and the toilet repair.

"We will definitely look into the possibility of any sort of recompense," said Dan Brucker, a spokesman for Metro-North. "It is standard operating practice for us to do this given that it is taxpayers' funds which have gone down the drain."

It was shortly after the 6:19 p.m. Harlem line train pulled out of Grand Central Terminal that the cell phone belonging to Edwin Gallart, 41, of the Bronx dropped into the toilet, officials said. A railroad supervisor was unable to free Gallart's arm and firefighters used three sets of power tools, including the jaws of life, to slice through the toilet. Thousands of commuters were inconvenienced as northbound local trains were rerouted.

Gallart could not be reached Friday. A man at the address refused to talk to reporters and a woman stepped outside and threw a pan of water toward reporters and camera crews.